The "Installed Software" might also be a hint at some sort of uninstaller built into OS X?

I'd go even further - what about some kind of App Store for OS X? You would browse all the apps available for OS X, free apps as well as paid apps, if youlike one, you click on it, you pay via iTunes, it's downloaded to your computer and installed automatically. Would be a great thing imho.

One thing I'm really missing: Today I added some new photos to iPhoto and added the names of my friends, when I found out that iPhoto now automatically suggests people in my address book when I start typing a name. I hoped that when I assign a name in my address book to one of the faces in my photos, that this face would automatically be added as a photo to the contact in address book, but this didn't happen. This would be a great time saver! When you add photos to your contacts, you can browse the iPhoto library, but not the Faces section, only the Events section. This is annoying.

Doubtful and unnecessary. Drag the App to the trash and it is uninstalled. If you want to go further, go to your Library folder and trash the pref files in Preferences and Application Support (if any present). You don't need an uninstaller like Windows does.

Not unnecessary for those who don't want to go to their library folder and trash pref files scattered about in two subdirectories. I personally would love to see an uninstaller,

FUNK! Apple you stopped making the clear plastic colored computers years ago! Update your freaking UI!! Aqua is old, out of date! I mean are you kidding me? Do you make any hardware that remotely matches the clear colored buttons on your finder boxes? Or the status bar for operations and progress? The iPhone has no problem looking modern and up to date. Is it that hard to draw a couple new animations and buttons out? It's really only a couple changes to the close/minimize/hide to the radial buttons/check boxes and tabs.. Yes it's a couple little things but how long can you go without modernizing them?
I always thought the three dots on the top left of windows would look cool if they matched the power buttons on the late model MacBook Pro and Mac Pro but hell those are already being phased out to not shine like a compact disk for a plain metal surface.

Small gripe, sorry but it's time!

You are so right. Recycled speckled folders were a change for the better?

Would you say it's akin to the effect of moving a file from a Stack in the Dock to the Trash in Leopard?

I also noticed in a previous build in a video leak that when clicking the little button in the upper right-hand corner of a Finder window, the window changes with a transition, rather than jumping to it as in Leopard.

No, not really. Just a simple fade away. And I just noticed the transition of the Finder windows. It looks like it could be nice, but on this old MacBook I'm running the build on, it's pretty jerky.

As for ZFS, it's not an option for formatting a drive. I would assume that it's no different than Leopard as regards ZFS.

Awesome stuff inewton, getting into some of the details that interest and are important to a lot of us ... the stuff that seems determined not to leak usually ><.

Awesome job on answering questions too! Hopefully you can go a few more:

1. Does the iTunes dashboard widget work? In Leopard you have never been able to select a playlist from the flip side of it - the drop box is there but refuses to activate. The widget also crashes pretty reliably. While there, any other changes to Dashboard?

2. I note QuickTime prefs are gone from System Preferences! They've always been pretty arcane - are the same settings accessible from within QT Player now? Personally I wonder why they persist in calling it 'Player'.

3. In Finder, if you change the toolbar to 'text only' does it still only say 'Back' for the 'Back/Forward' command?

4. I like the look of the new Time Zones prefs map - does it perchance know more cities now? If you select over by New Zealand, does it finally know Auckland as well as Wellington? Hopefully this would be true of the dashboard clock as well.

5. Anything new in open/save dialogs? The ability to 'view by kind' would be really nice - imo it would be the most likely desirable sort for navigating in those.

That'll do for now .

I really like the recycled paper look of Leopard folders, especially vis Ã* vis the earlier OS X icons with the old pinstripes. The recycled look is at least in line with Apple's attitude towards 'green' machines.

I don't have many issues with the current Aqua. Something changing with scrollbars would be interesting - some sort of consistency! If they go hidden & transparent like on the iPhone, the implementation needs to be a lot better. Scrolling to the bottom of a page on the iPhone can be truly painful. What I really hope doesn't happen is 'evolution' in the direction of Safari 4's interface .

Awesome stuff inewton, getting into some of the details that interest and are important to a lot of us ... the stuff that seems determined not to leak usually ><.

Awesome job on answering questions too! Hopefully you can go a few more:

1. Does the iTunes dashboard widget work? In Leopard you have never been able to select a playlist from the flip side of it - the drop box is there but refuses to activate. The widget also crashes pretty reliably. While there, any other changes to Dashboard?

2. I note QuickTime prefs are gone from System Preferences! They've always been pretty arcane - are the same settings accessible from within QT Player now? Personally I wonder why they persist in calling it 'Player'.

3. In Finder, if you change the toolbar to 'text only' does it still only say 'Back' for the 'Back/Forward' command?

4. I like the look of the new Time Zones prefs map - does it perchance know more cities now? If you select over by New Zealand, does it finally know Auckland as well as Wellington? Hopefully this would be true of the dashboard clock as well.

5. Anything new in open/save dialogs? The ability to 'view by kind' would be really nice - imo it would be the most likely desirable sort for navigating in those.

That'll do for now .

I really like the recycled paper look of Leopard folders, especially vis Ã* vis the earlier OS X icons with the old pinstripes. The recycled look is at least in line with Apple's attitude towards 'green' machines.

I don't have many issues with the current Aqua. Something changing with scrollbars would be interesting - some sort of consistency! If they go hidden & transparent like on the iPhone, the implementation needs to be a lot better. Scrolling to the bottom of a page on the iPhone can be truly painful. What I really hope doesn't happen is 'evolution' in the direction of Safari 4's interface .

I agree that Finder needs work in the area of moving files.

1. No changes to Dashboard that I can see. The iTunes widget is still broken as you describe. Bummer.

2. There are no preferences for the QuickTime Player application. I doubt there will be in the final build.

3. Yes, it still just says "Back." I actually never noticed this before... odd behavior.

4. Actually, yes! Thank you for getting me to check that. What happens is that you can click in any time zone (zones are highlighted as you hover over them). Once you select one, you can pick your closest city from the dropdown. It looks like many more cities have been added. You can also just start typing a city name in that box and you get a really cool interface where the world map goes dark and the city you're typing lights up. It looks pretty neat, I'll have to upload a shot of that.

5. Nothing new except that Quick Look now works in them... which is a huge improvement, in my opinion.

I'd go even further - what about some kind of App Store for OS X? You would browse all the apps available for OS X, free apps as well as paid apps, if youlike one, you click on it, you pay via iTunes, it's downloaded to your computer and installed automatically. Would be a great thing imho.

Just put a pretty face on it within the iTunes App Store. I'm not sure if they'd screen Mac apps like they have iPhone apps. They could do it more like iTunes' podcast directory where the content, while visible in iTunes, is actually stored on the podcaster's server.

This would be a nice alternative to downloading apps from the web, though you would still have the freedom to go that route as well. While they've stressed that SL won't ship with any "new features", this wouldn't qualify as a feature in the traditional sense.

Separately, I wonder if another UI change we'll see is predictive text. Yes, we have auto-correct and grammar now, but what about a menu that comes up as you type, essentially modeled off the iPhone's system? Use arrow keys to pick the right word (basically like the ctrl-clicking menu), then hit space to select the desired word.

They've finally got rid of the FUGLY recycled paper folders of Leopard and have gone back to their Jaguar transluscent roots. Thank you , thank you.
Many may think these look like Vista but we are back to the jellies.

They're still pretty ugly to me - the color is not great, and I wish they'd go back to angled folders (like Tiger) instead of flat ones (they wouldn't have to be as bright as Tiger folders).

The Finder also present an slider control for resizing icons in the lower right-hand corner of windows displayed in icon mode, as can be seen in the first screenshot below.

Do you know if we will finally be able to make the icon SPACING closer (like it was back in olden os 9 days)?

Quote:

Originally Posted by godrifle

Please give me resize handles on both left and right sides of windows, as if usability were a consideration.

I second the request (to Apple) to allow window resizing from more than lower-right corner.
If they put it on left and right, they could even call them "love-handles" (TM)

And I tend to agree with the comment that recent (Leo+) folders are too same looking. When i look at a GUI with icon-ized folders, I like it to be easy to distinguish the difference, as back in Jag/Panther/Tiger days. Update them, sure, fine - but let them be easy to tell apart from each other (I do find I have to stare/squint sometimes to tell which pale-blue folder icon is which).

For instance, you could set your screen to dim after 10 minutes of inactivity but not lock down the system and require a password prompt for 45 minutes. In current versions of the Mac OS, there's no separation of these features.

I don't understand this statement - In Tiger's Energy Saver Preference I can set the screen to dim in 10 minutes, and the computer to sleep in 45 minutes. Since I have it set to require a password to wake from sleep, it does exactly what the article says you can't do. Is this different in Leopard?

I use Clean App for deleting apps. When you drop something in the trash Clean App opens and shows all the associated files and folders and gives you the option to delete everything. You would be surprised how many apps have alot more than just .plists. This really should be built into the OS. It's not anywhere near as bad as Windows with a zillion registry entires but it's not as clean and simple as Apple says it is either.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hillstones

Doubtful and unnecessary. Drag the App to the trash and it is uninstalled. If you want to go further, go to your Library folder and trash the pref files in Preferences and Application Support (if any present). You don't need an uninstaller like Windows does.

The law has been interpreted in multiple court cases to say you can make backup copies for your own use. The RIAA says differently even though they won't come right out and say it. So it is legal but the RIAA wants you to be unsure about it.

Major Ditto, hence the value of an app like Cocoatech Path Finder.
I find I do a lot of file management, moving, copying, etc and the Finder is just rather clumsy at that.
And even though I have previously spent some years on DOS, VMS, HPUX, and similar CLI, I'd rather not open a terminal window when I am in a GUI OS.

Tabs would be nice.
And a reliable Finder-based file copy-paste and cut-paste would be great.
(at least, the last times I had tried that methodology it was not reliable... or was I using a contextmenu add-on?... now I don't remember, as I gave up on it, and just use window moving method as macFanDave said).

We are a long way from the final build and UI changes of this nature are held to the end so don;'t assume too much from these screenshots.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MTO

FUNK! Apple you stopped making the clear plastic colored computers years ago! Update your freaking UI!! Aqua is old, out of date! I mean are you kidding me? Do you make any hardware that remotely matches the clear colored buttons on your finder boxes? Or the status bar for operations and progress? The iPhone has no problem looking modern and up to date. Is it that hard to draw a couple new animations and buttons out? It's really only a couple changes to the close/minimize/hide to the radial buttons/check boxes and tabs.. Yes it's a couple little things but how long can you go without modernizing them?
I always thought the three dots on the top left of windows would look cool if they matched the power buttons on the late model MacBook Pro and Mac Pro but hell those are already being phased out to not shine like a compact disk for a plain metal surface.

I use Clean App for deleting apps. When you drop something in the trash Clean App opens and shows all the associated files and folders and gives you the option to delete everything. You would be surprised how many apps have alot more than just .plists. This really should be built into the OS. It's not anywhere near as bad as Windows with a zillion registry entires but it's not as clean and simple as Apple says it is either.

Totally agree with your comment above in bold. OSX should be app-aware, properly uninstalling all pieces of apps. Ditto re excluding from time machine etc. It is just not enough to treat apps as if they were just a bunch of files lying around.

Many of the most important software concepts were invented in the 70s and forgotten in the 80s.

Seeing change in date & time - I wonder if they've improved the timekeeping? A while ago the 'set time now' went away, and the current logic is the hidden mystery logic that has your computer "Check with the timeserver as often as you need to in order to keep decent time". In 10.4.11 this doesn't really work, as my computer was way off in timekeeping (almost a full minute off). Not sure if 10.5 keeps better time, but with the other date & time changes in 10.6, I'm curious if they've made the mac a better clock...

Have no idea what you are talking about. My Macs' clock has always been dead-on accurate with the time servers, even back to the Classic OS.

You have assumed Apple is doing this and are using your built up straw man to reach way too far in your conclusions. It's kind of odd really. The type of apps you speak of have been around for some time and RIAA only went after them at first before realizing how futile it is.
But not nearly as odd as your Time Machine comments. You don't have to use Time Machine. it does not preclude use of cloning apps. What's more you can use cloning apps and Time Machine on the same disk at the same time as I do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MacTripper

Although I applaud the screen/audio record function of Snow Leopard, it won't most likely be available for copyrighted material.
I'm a believer in fair use, if you buy a movie you should be allowed to alter it and show others, long as your not denying the copyright holder of returns on their investment.
People have done some funny things, like this videohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5blbv4WFriM
So with that, if Apple denies copyright screen recording, then that delegates software like SnapzProX to being only needed for illegal purposes, instead of dual use (legal and illegal)
Sort of like a baseball bat, take away the game of baseball and the only thing a baseball bat is good for is no good. (why would you need such a heavy club for anyway? right?)
So I'm wondering now that Apple will be essentially controlling the screen/audio recording on OS X with their own product, will this open the door for the MIAA/RIAA to go after third party OS X companies that offer a total recording package?
Its like Apple is stepping into these grey areas in order to police things, deny cool third party companies a income source. First Time Machine to thwart people from cloning their boot drives (the best boot drive backup method), now screen/audio recording to thwart people from making funny alterations to popular videos.
Where will this slow creep of control end?

Since you have European flag in your menu bar, that may be the difference. The US setting does not allow you to display the date next to the time. I can click to see a drop-down with the date, but only the day can be displayed next to the time.

So... any more questions I can help answer before I get nailed by Apple?

I'm curious about Front Row. Are there any updates to it, or does it look like it does in Leopard? Also, does it list seasons separately under TV Shows, or does it list each show as one like on the Apple TV?

But that is still just speculation. I assume there's still no new info saying for sure that it's intel only?

Don't count on any PowerPC support. Snow Leopard was mainly to optimize the OS for Intel. The PowerPC G5 is now 6 years old. Why would Apple waste resources supporting it when they have no intention of using the PowerPC (and hasn't been used for 3 years)? Same transition occurred with the 68040 to PowerPC. Apple cut off the 68040 processor with Mac OS 8.5 to concentrate on optimizing the OS for PowerPC.

Doubtful and unnecessary. Drag the App to the trash and it is uninstalled. If you want to go further, go to your Library folder and trash the pref files in Preferences and Application Support (if any present). You don't need an uninstaller like Windows does.

This is true for most Mac OS X apps, and for some apps, uninstalling may only a little more complicated, involving removal of one or two .plist files. However, there are actually a fair number of apps that install a number of components into several different directories. Having a built-in function that could look at the receipt file for an installed app and remove all related component files, sounds like a great idea to me. If it went even further and triggered Disk Utility to repair any necessary permissions afterwards, that would be even better. For apps as unimaginably invasive as Norton Antivirus (and other similar apps that I have to install for work), this would be a God-send.

I do QA for a widely-known app that installs a fair number of components into different directories, and it would be nice not to have to make and update my own Applescript-based uninstaller, to completely clean out old builds before installing new ones.

3. In Finder, if you change the toolbar to 'text only' does it still only say 'Back' for the 'Back/Forward' command?

Actually, the text label for Back/Forward button(s) only says 'Back' even when the toolbar is in 'Button and Text' mode. However, in any mode, alt-clicking on the back button will take you forward. Just an FYI.

I disagree. Having to direct a user where to go to delete every part of an app is not very Mac-like.

I guess you have never used the Mac prior to OS X? When an Application was installed in the Classic OS, you had control panels and system extensions that also required removal (not for every app, but for some). Those had to be manually removed. Those days are gone In OS X. You only need to drag the Application to the trash and it is gone...and every part of the App goes with it. You don't need an uninstaller for that. The reference to deleting items from the Library folder is only to clear out the Preference files. Those are not loaded into memory like Control Panels and Extensions were in the old days.

Not exactly correct. In Leopard, you can't set the interval, but there is a short delay between when the screen saver activates, and when the password is required to unlock it (if you have that enabled). Next time you see your screen saver start (or you can just start it immediately with a hot corner), immediately move your mouse and you will not be prompted for a password. Not sure exactly how long it is (probably 30-60 seconds at the most), but there's already some "grace period" between the two events.

Are you unable to test that theory yourself? Yes, if you IMMEDIATELY move your mouse to wake the screen again after it fades to black, you will go right back to the Desktop. If you wait 1 second, you will be prompted for the password. It is not a 30-60 second grace period.

1. No changes to Dashboard that I can see. The iTunes widget is still broken as you describe. Bummer.

2. There are no preferences for the QuickTime Player application. I doubt there will be in the final build.

3. Yes, it still just says "Back." I actually never noticed this before... odd behavior.

4. Actually, yes! Thank you for getting me to check that. What happens is that you can click in any time zone (zones are highlighted as you hover over them). Once you select one, you can pick your closest city from the dropdown. It looks like many more cities have been added. You can also just start typing a city name in that box and you get a really cool interface where the world map goes dark and the city you're typing lights up. It looks pretty neat, I'll have to upload a shot of that.

5. Nothing new except that Quick Look now works in them... which is a huge improvement, in my opinion.

Thanks for the responses. I look forward to seeing the timezone map in action!

The iTunes dashboard widget is a bit of a joke by now ... if not dashboard as a whole. Thanks for confirming what I was suspecting.

I really hope open/save dialogs see some improvement. They have tended to with most of the paid upgrades, but there's still so much room for more. QuickLook is an interesting addition, and I guess it serves more purpose there than the little to none it serves in Finder.

@ erikvdo: true I didn't realise that with icon & text - sloppy imo. The alt-click to go forward isn't working for me in text only mode. The Prev/Next toolbar buttons in Preview work well in text only mode, giving a select menu when clicked - why can't they do that in Finder ?

I don't understand this statement - In Tiger's Energy Saver Preference I can set the screen to dim in 10 minutes, and the computer to sleep in 45 minutes. Since I have it set to require a password to wake from sleep, it does exactly what the article says you can't do. Is this different in Leopard?

Look at the screenshot. The difference is simple. Currently when you choose the option for a password to wake from sleep or screensaver, the Mac will immediately lock and require a password as soon as the screen saver (or sleep) is activated (either manually or period of inactivity). In Snow Leopard, you can now set a duration for when the Mac will lock down and require a password to wake from the screensaver. So if you set the feature for 10 minutes, you can invoke the screensaver and wake it up without the password within a 10 minute period. If the Mac is in a screensaver for more than 10 minutes, then it will lock down and require a password to turn off the screensaver. That is the new feature.

I use Clean App for deleting apps. When you drop something in the trash Clean App opens and shows all the associated files and folders and gives you the option to delete everything. You would be surprised how many apps have alot more than just .plists. This really should be built into the OS. It's not anywhere near as bad as Windows with a zillion registry entires but it's not as clean and simple as Apple says it is either.

I agree, there are some programs (GarbageBand) that spreads large files everywhere (on the other hand, those same files can also be used by other programs). But the main difference is that preference files don't mess up your system the way Windows Registry Entries do. So Windows needs an uninstaller to undo the registry entries that programs do. You can delete a Mac app simply by dragging it from the Applications folder to your trash. However, you can't do that on Windows. Adding an uninstaller may make things more complicated because that feature would require an excessive number of updates to be compatible with programs outside of Apple's control. If such a feature is for Apple apps only, then people will complain that it is useless because it doesn't support the thousands of programs available. Most likely, there isn't such a feature in Snow Leopard.

Don't count on any PowerPC support. Snow Leopard was mainly to optimize the OS for Intel. The PowerPC G5 is now 6 years old. Why would Apple waste resources supporting it when they have no intention of using the PowerPC (and hasn't been used for 3 years)? Same transition occurred with the 68040 to PowerPC. Apple cut off the 68040 processor with Mac OS 8.5 to concentrate on optimizing the OS for PowerPC.

And not only that but much of Snow Leopard's under-the-hood changes only benefit multi-core systems. That would narrow it down to PowerMacs. Can you imagine the outcry if Apple only released Snow Leopard for those?

It makes much more sense to cut off PPC support at Snow Leopard and I say this as I type from my PowerBook G4 running Leopard.

I do QA for a widely-known app that installs a fair number of components into different directories, and it would be nice not to have to make and update my own Applescript-based uninstaller, to completely clean out old builds before installing new ones.

Perhaps the programmers could do a better job so their product doesn't install multiple components all over the place. The components should remain in the Applications package file.